L Knew
by Bittersweet Alias
Summary: L's subtle observations of Light made him realize just how dire the situation would become. L knew then that Light's greatest power was not the ability to kill but the ability to ensnare the enemy. L-centric. L/Light. Shounen-ai, One-shot


**Disclaimer: I couldn't possibly own something as amazing as Death Note.**

**Shounen-ai - nothing graphic. L/Light**

**Death Note**

_**L Knew -**_

The first time, he had ever laid eyes on Yagami Light, L was stunned to the screen completely. He sat crouched with his arms wrapped around his thin knees and his large dark blue eyes stared at the figure with reddish gold hair and more importantly golden eyes.

Chief Yagami's son, never would he have suspected this. He leaned forward watching the camera that was angled on him closely. He could feel his heart thumping and he knew that feeling, this boy was perfect in every way.

Some would say that he was too perfect. Deftly, L reached over without taking his eyes off the screen and picked up a chocolate covered marshmallow and began to break it apart with his fingers. He could feel Chief Yagami next to him watching with a forlorn expression.

He almost wished he could have done this in private without them ever knowing but he needed to trust these people and get them to trust him. It was the only way it would work.

Light did nothing suspicious except go through his room which caused Chief Yagami to splutter in surprise.

"He's seventeen," L reasoned. "Most seventeen-year-old's do things like this. This doesn't make him suspicious. I'd be suspicious if he didn't do this."

"Hai," the man said tiredly.

"You should lay down," L said softly. "We have several days of this."

"N- no, I'm fine. It's my family that I'm worried about."

L didn't want to say that he wasn't interested in the woman or daughter, he was interested in the boy, his room was spectacularly clean, which told L that he was a neat freak. Everything inside of it was crisp and there was a vacuum cleaner in the corner to answer his suspicions.

"Your son is intelligent?"

Yagami actually smiled, L caught the reflection. "O- oh, yes. He's always number one on the Japanese National Exams, every year he takes them."

"I see," L said quietly. He finished off his marshmallow and licked his lips of the sweet taste and brought his thumbs to his mouth and nibbled. He could still taste the chocolate.

"He wants to be a private detective like me, it's his dream," the man urged on hoping to bring his son back out of the clouds.

L felt sympathetic for him, his intelligent son under suspicion couldn't be easy. Just by looking at the Chief he knew that the man was a wonderful father. The fear in his eyes of his family being up to no good brought out pain in his eyes.

L wondered where Light got golden eyes and the reddish hair, it was an unique trait. He shook the thoughts from his mind. That wasn't what was important.

Light left again and Yagami sighed with relief. "I think I'll take a nap now that he's gone for a while."

"I'll wake you if there's anything new," L promised.

"Thank you." He left the room leaving L with Watari who was at the computer. "Watari-san, would you get me Light's school and medical records?"

The man nodded.

L turned his attention off on the screen, nothing else interested him, and he pondered about the boy. If Yagami Light was Kira and he was intelligent, L would have think of what would he do if he were Light? How would he counteract everything they had set up?

It could be done and if Light was as intelligent as him then this game of cat and mouse just got more difficult. He had no doubt that Yagami's son was as brilliant as he said, the man never embellished or lied for that matter. He was an honest man, one of the few people in this world that you could count on to speak the truth.

If Light believed that Kira was a way to full justice then L had no doubt that the boy could be Kira. But he only had his mind to go on and nothing more. No one would except that.

There was movement and L took the folders delicately and placed them beside him. He picked up the first and it showed his grades being perfect all across the board. No mistakes to be made. He held the corner of the paper with his index finger and thumb scanning it before placing it aside for the next one.

"He is a brilliant student."

"Just like you were," Watari commented.

"That doesn't bode well," L said quietly. "If he is like me and using Kira as his source of strong justice, we have our most difficult task ahead then."

Watari smiled a little. "You can solve anything, L-kun."

"Oh, I will solve it," L said factually. "But as I figure it, if he's like me, he doesn't like to lose and I think that we may wind up at a stand-still. A face off."

"We shall try not to let it come to that."

"Try," L murmured reaching over for a powdered chocolate. He nibbled the ends. "Try is an ambiguous word. Let's hope the word try can turn into a fact."

Yagami Light was a master player at chess and tennis, he excelled for years but quit after he won a country wide tournament. The private school he attended was one of the best in the Japan and it even showed where he applied to university. He only applied to one, To-Oh, and L knew that Light didn't need to hunt anymore. The teen could go anywhere in the world and they would let him right in. Only thing in his way was the national exams and that wasn't even a problem according to the grades. He'd been taking mock ones every year since he was twelve.

"It's almost a pity," L commented in the open. "If he wasn't suspected, I'd request his aid."

Watari smiled but said nothing to this.

"Perhaps, I still will. We'll see how this goes," L said quietly. "Even under suspicion, his help would be interesting."

It was an hour later when Light came back home, he had a bag in his hand and L's eyes zoomed in on it. Did he already find out about the bugs and cameras? He wouldn't be surprised, if he had other traps set in his room besides the piece of the paper in his doorway it was likely that he was at least suspicious.

Watari went back to his work at the computer and L continued to watch through the night. He nearly grinned when he heard Light's words about the ICPO message. Chief Yagami was still asleep and it was just him and boy was he glad of this because Light had decided to take a bath. He was fishing through his closet and L noticed he had his own towels in his bedroom.

Was he that conscience of cleanliness? L wondered and if he was did this extend to the criminals that he was killing off? He was over the top clean freak.

"A genius seventeen-year-old so obsessed about cleanliness that he stored his own bath towels in his bedroom, Watari-san, how far would he go for cleanliness?"

Watari inclined his head, and L knew he agreed wholeheartedly without saying anything.

L's hand paused on the strawberry mousse cake in front of him when the door to the bathroom closed and one by one the buttons on Light's starch white shirt came undone. He gulped and dropped his hand to the table, his other one clenching the knees of his blue jeans.

He turned his attention to the other camera which was in the cabinet mirror overlooking the sink and he got an up close and personal look at the being that was Yagami Light.

He was glad for the darkness and he was glad that Chief Yagami was nowhere to be seen because his cheeks heated up. L was used to spying on people in this kind of work, seriously, he wasn't the type of person to be caught going red because of a bit of flesh.

So, why was he feeling like an imposing little pervert as his eyes raked down Light's chest. L began to bite his thumb harshly when the teen's hands went to his waistband and slowly began to undo the buttons and zipper.

He swallowed thickly as he gazed at Light's nakedness. His body felt unusually warm, a serious but beautiful teenage boy with a built body. He was slim with a few toned even muscles up his arms. He was perhaps a touch underweight but he wasn't sickly by any means. He stepped into the shower and L's eyes flicked to the camera next to him which had been installed in the shower itself and saw the hot steam rise and swirl around the enigmatic figure that had L feeling like a little boy.

He quickly picked up his strawberry treat and tried to focus on it rather than the drenched Light on the screen but his eyes felt as though they were super glued.

The teen's hair wet and dripping stuck to the sides of his angular jaw line and some of it dangled into his eyes. So very interesting, reddish gold, L thought marveling once again and suddenly it was like he wasn't observing a potential criminal but a potential model.

He was… astonishing.

When Light finally got back out fifteen minutes later, L breathed a sigh of relief when silk pajamas hid the sensual nakedness and when he got back to his room, Chief Yagami came through with a sleepy stagger.

"They just had dinner and Light's prepared to study," L explained. "Does he study a lot?"

"Oh, yes, especially considering there are twelve days left until the exams."

"Hm," L hummed and offered Chief Yagami some cake but the man shook his head.

"Blood sugar is high enough right now."

"You should eat something, Watari-san?"

"I'm on it."

"O- oh, it's fine," he stammered.

"I will return," Watari said bowing his head genially. "With dinner for all."

They watched into the night, nothing suspicious. He nodded off a couple times only to wake twenty minutes later and once he was gone for school, L decided to take a quick rest in the next room. He would awake twenty minutes before Light returned.

But as he laid down that night the growing warmth inside of him increased but he turned over in the bed and shut those irritating feelings off and forced himself into a complicated sleep only to wake three hours later.

He should have known, he never slept more than three hours at a time. He couldn't, his mind was always swarming with thoughts. Instead, he went for a quick shower and shut off a certain part of his brain that affected him most.

He returned to the sofa and found a tray of sweet fruits sitting in front of him and thanked Watari. Chief Yagami was also asleep slumped in the chair with a blanket around his body.

It was a day or two later when reports came in that a purse snatcher and a bank embezzler died of heart attacks. This annoyed and fascinated L on a whole new level. How was he doing it? He needed a piece to this complicated puzzle. How, indeed.

Chief Yagami was relieved but L was now on edge. They were low criminals but they were criminals nonetheless. Light knew there were cameras and somehow got around them, but how?

It was the next day, when Light started watching TV again but there was nothing suspicious about it. It was too perfect. One day he didn't watch and people died, minor people. Second day, he watches television and still minor people died. If Light had a photographic memory then he could go out of the house and write the names down.

He didn't say this aloud but he told everyone that he'd have them removed. He reported that there were no suspicious activity but that didn't mean he didn't suspect.

If one of them is Kira then it meant that no one was making mistakes, no expression on their faces at all. What this meant to L was that the mass murderer Kira was already at a level of a God presumably.

He wished that he could believe in divine judgment but he couldn't, God wouldn't need names and faces to kill. This was a childish scheme from a childish murderer and L would catch him.

He could meet face to face with the suspected Kira and try and get him to confess but how?

"I will have to take matters into my own hands," L said finally as he slipped off the couch and left the room, shocking everyone but Watari.

It was a few days later when L found himself perched in his seat as each student came through the doors. He had arrived hours earlier and he was already having a withdrawal of sweets. He sat crouched and ignored those who were staring strangely at him.

He would look out of place here, everyone was prim and properly dressed but L didn't really care about looking the part of a typical student. It was exactly eight minutes before the exam when Light appeared in the doorway.

It seemed dark but then the sunlight from the windows drifted in bathing the teen's features and making him stand out handsomely. He was wearing tailored clothes that fit him perfectly, he was the perfect student, his hands carelessly in his khaki pockets and he paid no one any mind as he casually walked through the room and took his seat.

He was even more enigmatic in person. If this was Kira, he was good. His facial expressions didn't change much, he looked as if he had not a care in the world.

His toes twitched on the hard seats and he peered down at the civics test that was closed and the mechanical number two pencil he was given.

When they began, Light seemed to pause and wait around as everyone was quick to open and get the questions done before the timer went off but Light was at ease. He didn't need to be quick and instead, he slowly flipped open the page and picked up his pencil.

L tried to keep from staring but it wasn't easy, he passed the time by answering his own questions and ignored the examiner who told him to sit right.

This got Light's attention and he peered over his shoulder and for the first time ever, gold eyes met his. They were cunning and sly and they almost looked red in the overhead lights.

L watched him turn back around and work on his test.

It was like this every day of the exams, L sat in his same seat, waiting and watched Light in his carefree manner and it was no surprise that come the late fall they were both introduced at the To-Oh university.

Hideki Ryuga, the alias L used. The two were complete opposites and contrasts, yet, they scored the same and it was just like L figured, Light was a genius, Light was a lot like him. He could hear the murmuring's in the crowds pointing out the differences.

He knew he stood out like a sore thumb, he was in the same old thing he always wore and he walked with a slight hunch with sagged shoulders and his hands in his pockets while Light used his sophistication and swayed each hip in a poised and sensual way. He was wearing a perfectly fitted blue suit and his eyes stood out along with his hair.

The two met on stage and Light observed him with cool recognition, L stood back, listening and watching as he gave the address and when he was done L stepped up and held the paper by the top delicately and quickly said his speech.

When it was over, L walked behind Light and introduced himself. He sat with the poised teenager who didn't even flinch when he mentioned the Kira Case.

This boy was good, of all the suspects, L couldn't help but feel with his gut that this teen was perfect, too perfect.

They sat together. Light arched a perfect eyebrow and his eyes really looked red and so did his hair. He tilted his head allowing his bangs to flicker into those eyes. L decided to try the direct approach and when he told Light that he was L, the teen didn't even flinch.

It was exactly two minutes later that Light tilted his head. "If you are he, then you are a man I respect and admire."

Perfect answer. "Thank you. I was hoping that I could get your help on the case, I've heard much about you from your father."

"I am honored," Light said quietly.

It was then that L somehow knew that Light would become his first friend, first love, and in the end… Yagami Light would be his enemy.

L always knew that love would kill him.


End file.
